


Olympic Tryouts (part 31)

by jennamacaroni



Series: Olympic Tryouts [31]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:03:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennamacaroni/pseuds/jennamacaroni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana and Brittany have been rivals in the college hockey world for the past four years.  now they’re both at Olympic tryouts to play on the same team and Boston and Minnesota just don’t get along, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Olympic Tryouts (part 31)

**Author's Note:**

> part 31. big things happening in canon. feels. fucking. everywhere.
> 
> sorry i still can't figure out this fucking website.
> 
> shoutout to the anon who gave me the idea for the second part of this chap months and months ago by asking me a question that i am finally getting around to answering.
> 
> and thank you to everyone who supports me and this story.

The days of October fall away like pages torn from a notebook, one after the other. Wake up in Brittany’s arms or pressed up against her, fighting through practice session after grueling session. Weight training, speed workouts, film review, day after day. Training gets only slightly easier as Santana’s body get stronger, faster, and somewhat more used to the incredible physical demand of being an Olympic-caliber hockey player.

“Tell me about your family,” Brittany mumbles, her breathing steadying as she presses her cheek to Sanana’s breastbone as they tuck into bed for the night, a few weeks before Halloween. “What are they like?”

Santana swallows thickly before brushing off a non-committal answer. “They’re parents. You know,” she trails off, kissing the crown of Brittany’s head and smoothing the flyaways along her hairline, a weak attempt at distracting from Brittany’s question.

“No, I don’t, actually. You never talk about them,” Brittany counters, tracing lines along Santana’s collarbone, back and forth. “I’ve never seen you call them, you never talk about them-”

“We’re more of an emailing family.” Another brush off. “What my mother did today, how the cat and dog are, superficial stuff. We’re not really close.” At Santana’s false bravado, Brittany stops her idle tracing and instead pays full attention, her brow scrunched up as she looks right down into the deep well of Santana. The look that means she’s searching for the truth under the bullshit. It never fails to make Santana feel completely transparent in a way she never has before. It makes her want to tell Brittany everything.

“My dad is cool.” She hesitates. “My mom,” she trails off, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth while Brittany waits. “They’re proud of me, I guess. Star athlete, good grades, never broke the rules or whatever. But they hate the being into girls thing. It’s just something they may never get over even as much as they’d hope to. They’re both Catholic, and technically so am I, so that certainly doesn’t help. Just not how good Catholic girls behave, you know?”

Brittany watches her carefully, measuring the weight of each breath by pressing her palm to Santana’s chest, just over her heart. She waits patiently as she always does when Santana talks about serious and personal things, always careful never to pry but nevertheless leaving Santana wanting to say more.

“It hasn’t been that long, since I came out. College I had a serious enough girlfriend that I ended up telling them about and that was that.”

“So it didn’t go well?” Brittany asks, her softest voice wrapping around Santana like a blanket and warming her from the outside in.

“No, it didn’t. I shattered all of my mother’s hopes and dreams for me at the mention of a girlfriend. No more walking down the aisle in a big white dress, the perfect man waiting for me at the altar, the grandchildren, holidays with the in-laws. All of it.”

Brittany’s lip protrudes outward into a pout. “But you can still have all of that with a woman.”

“And thats what I told her. But she doesn’t want to hear that I still have all those hopes and dreams for myself and whoever I end up marrying one day won’t change that. That I still want those things.”

“What about your dad?”

“He took the middle of the road as he always does. Can’t risk going too much against my mom being that she holds a grudge better than anyone and he has to live with her every day. I think it was just easier to agree with her rather than fight constantly, and I can’t say I blame him.” Santana sighs heavily, turning her eyes towards the speckled ceiling of their room and blinking away moisture.

“And what about now? It’s been a few years, right?”

“They’re better-ish. Mom lasted about three months of ignoring me completely before my dad at least convinced her to come watch me play again. Then another three months of picking her out in the crowd but only finding Dad waiting for me outside the rink after every game. He was a good sport trying to make excuses for her, but the truth was always written all over his face. My mother was ashamed of me. Her own flesh and blood.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true, Santana-”

“Don’t defend her, Brittany, you don’t know.” The words rush out harsh and quick as a whip crack that Santana regrets immediately. “Britt-”

“No, it’s okay, Santana. You’re right, I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

There’s a heavy silence draping them both but Santana wraps her arms just a bit tighter around Brittany’s shoulders and squeezes a silent sorry back.

“We should put up stars.”

“Hm?” Brittany asks, confused at the sudden change of subject.

“On the ceiling. You know, those glow in the dark ones they sell at science museum gift shops? I had them in my room growing up. I even arranged them into real constellations because I’m a nerd like that.”

“I’d like that,” Brittany agrees, pressing her lips to the underside of Santana’s chin.

“I’d like to take you to the Boston Museum of Science. It’s one of my favorite places in the city. We used to go all the time in school growing up and I bet you’d like it.”

“You would, huh?” Santana can hear Brittany’s smile even if she can’t see her.

“I would.” They’re quiet as a distant airplane passes high above and Santana wonders about the people on board: where they’re going and coming from, whether they’re doctors or engineers, famous authors or TV personalities. Whether they have husbands and wives or tiny children at home. Whether they’ve experienced bitter tragedy or euphoric triumph. If maybe their parents are disappointed in them somehow, too.

“Hey San, can I ask you something?” Brittany asks, tugging Santana from the daydream and pressing herself up onto her elbows so she can look properly at Santana in the soft glowing light of the bedside lamp.

“Sure, Britt. Anything.” Sometimes she thinks she could look at Brittany forever.

“You know they’re wrong, right? Your mom and dad.”

Santana shifts her eyes away as she sighs. “I know,” although it doesn’t sound like she quite means it.

Brittany’s fingers find Santana’s chin, easing it back to get her complete attention. “You don’t deserve it, Santana. You are a caring, kind and wonderful human being and you don’t deserve any of it. They’re supposed to love you and support you no matter what. That’s their job. That’s what being a parent is, and it’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Santana agrees, pressing at the corner of her eye to hold in a tear before Brittany leans forward to kiss it away. 

“Want to watch Harry Potter? I’ll make you some tea.” And just like that, Brittany once again knows exactly what Santana needs and they fall asleep tangled up in each other, the computer balanced haphazardly across their laps and the movie playing quietly in the background.

_____

“Do you have it here?” Santana asks one lazy Saturday afternoon, toying absently with Brittany’s left ring finger as they lie naked and tangled together on Brittany’s bed.

“Have what?” Brittany asks, lifting her head from Santana’s chest to rest her chin on Santana’s breastbone and peeking up at her through long lashes.

“Your National Championship ring.” Santana tries her best to keep her voice steady, but her throat constricts against her will and she has to look away, wondering absently where in the room Brittany might keep it. _The closet? Top drawer of her dresser? In a box under the bed?_ Brittany’s fingers continue to doodle absently along her shoulder and the goosebumps appear like clockwork, tingling down all of her limbs.

“I don’t have it,” Brittany answers simply, but something coarse in her voice betrays her and Santana turns back, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t have it? Your dad keeping it safe for you? I mean, with such an envious and vindictive roommate, I can’t say I’d blame you for leaving it at home. For all you know I’d rifle through the room while you were sleeping just to slip it onto my own finger. _My preeeecious_ ,” she says in her best guttural Gollum voice.

The corner of Brittany’s lips turn up but the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and Santana’s chuckle dies on her lips and she falls silent, her hands stilling along Brittany’s lower back.

“It’s with my mom,” Brittany explains with a half shrug, her eyes flicking away and back quickly before filling quickly with tears. “I buried it with her.”

Santana responds instinctually by tightening her grip around Brittany. As if more body contact will somehow help hold together Brittany’s still-broken heart.

“I guess we haven’t talked about it much, the game and all. I figured you wouldn’t want to.” Brittany’s voice trails off before tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. 

Santana traces a heart into each of Brittany’s shoulder blades, one after the other. “Tell me,” she whispers, this time leaning forward to kiss Brittany’s eyebrow.

There’s a long and drawn out silence before Brittany takes a deep uneasy breath. “Things got bad that winter,” she explains thickly, pressing her cheek back down against Santana’s chest and tapping a finger in steady rhythm with her heartbeat. “Our senior year. They did the bone marrow transplant in January, but-” she pauses to swallow thickly. “But she wouldn’t ever leave the hospital again.” Her voice breaks on the last word.

“Sweetheart,” Santana breathes, kissing a temple.

“It was so hard to focus on playing, you know? Like, hockey is just a dumb sport and my mom was _dying_ in that room while I was flying all over the country chasing some stupid dream.” Her chest heaves with a shuddering breath.

“It’s not a stupid dream, Britt.”

“No, I know, I know. But I struggled to stay focused, and I came _so_ close to quitting and dropping out of school so I could spend every second I could with her. You never think you’ll run out of time…” Santana can feel the tears drip one by one onto her chest as she rubs soft circles onto Brittany’s back, every so often kissing her brow.

“But I couldn’t do it, she wouldn’t let me. And so I played.” Brittany gasps, now crying in earnest, her body wracking with deep heaves. “I never meant for it to end up the way it did, Santana, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“Shhhhhh,” Santana soothes, laying a palm along Brittany’s cheek. “Look at me,” she whispers, waiting until Brittany meets her eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. We both did our best and that’s just how it ended up. You earned that championship and no one can ever take that away from you, and I would _never_ want to. And I’m sure there was not a prouder human being on this earth than your mom was of you.”

Brittany sniffles wetly before nodding. “She was. After we won I went straight from the rink to the hospital still in all my sweaty clothes and laid with her all night. I’ll never forget that day for the rest of my life, that _‘Gophers National Champions’_ hat drooped over her baldy-bean head and a smile so wide I thought her face might split clean in two.” Brittany pauses again to take in a few shaking breaths. “She died a month later. We got our rings just in time for me to put it in the casket with her. It’s what I’d worked toward my entire life and she sacrificed so much for my dream, you know? It was hers as much as mine and I knew she would keep it safe.”

All at once, there’s a shift in Brittany’s eyes from sorrow to something entirely different as she pulls in a quick breath. It’s like a switch flicked somewhere deep within the circuits of her brain and the sorrow dissipates like smoke.

“I love you, Santana.”

For what feels like the millionth time since they were assigned into this cramped dorm room together, Brittany takes Santana’s breath away. She says it so resolutely and calmly, like it’s the most essential truth she’s ever known and Santana blinks back in surprise. When Brittany doesn’t look like she regrets the admission, Santana melts, running a finger along Brittany’s eyebrow, down the peak of her cheekbone and the length of her upper lip before pressing their lips together.

“And I love _you_ , Britt,” Santana answers, pulling back just far enough to get the words out and blinking back tears swimming in her own eyes. Brittany pushes herself up onto her elbows and shuffles up the bed slightly, reaching for Santana’s face with both hands and kissing her deeply.

“I love you.”


End file.
